Tuesday, December 13, 2011

Bulkka Magazine Interview by Tomas Lopez


*By Tomas Lopez
I became passionate about the traditional photographic printing process when I was 15, convincing my family to turn our storage cellar into a darkroom and I started to photograph my friends skateboarding. In my later teens I was completely distracted by surfing and snowboarding and there were competitions that I had started to do quiet well in.
When I was 19 I suffered a debilitating back injury snowboarding that stopped me in my tracks for a year and forced me to consider my path. My love of photography re-emerged.
To be a streetkid in NY means to be in the reactor core of modern pop culture, but your living at the edge because you have no money and no support from your family. You are streetwise and your friends are your family. You are strong and courageous. You are like a raw uncut diamond. When you rise up from the streets and overcome so much adversity. This moment of grace is beautiful and illuminating. 
The photo project is titled Street Kids and they were mostly 13-21 year old kids who I found hanging out late at night on the streets of New York. I was attracted to those who exist at the edges of society. The outsiders. I wanted people to feel through the camera what they were feeling, the vulnerability but also the courage. I photographed them from a deeply visceral place rather than from the intellect. The camera was drawn to where it needed to go. And I always wonder where these kids are right now.






Have you ever felt your brain is going to explode?
My brain explodes often, when the dust and smoke settles, but for a moment there is beauty, grace and pure joy. Everything is beautiful and seems to make sense.
Is there is a streetkid inside you?
As a teenager I walked through some self destructive times. There was anger and all hope seemed lost. Perhaps there is an empathy for what some of them are going through.
What is your favorite quote?
“So we shall let the reader answer this question for himself: who is the happier man, he who has braved the storm of life and lived or he who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?”. Hunter S. Thompson



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